


So It Goes

by sleepypercy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Season 8, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepypercy/pseuds/sleepypercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's disoriented and lost in time. Both Dean and Cas try to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So It Goes

**Author's Note:**

> Time-traveling concept and obvious title stolen from Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House Five. But no close encounters. Not even of the fourth kind.  
> Much love to [cosmonaught](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmonaught/pseuds/cosmonaught) for the beta.

Sam breathes in.  
  
Ever since he let go of the trials, his body has been out of sorts—not sure if it’s ready to heal, not sure how to go back to what it was, not sure what _temperature_ it’s supposed to be—and that disorientation has slipped into his subconscious, blurring together sleep, reality, time, place.  
  
In the middle of the night, Sam pads quietly to the bathroom to take a piss, closes his eyes for a second—just _one_ second, he swears—and when he opens them, dawn is on the horizon and he’s in the middle of the woods, wearing nothing but his pajama pants and shivering as the cool air hits his skin.  
  
Head swirling, he frowns at his naked feet, flexes his toes, and feels the dry leaves and dirt crunch beneath them. When he looks at his shaky hands, there are scrapes and bruises all over his fingers and wrists as well as something burnt-red crusting underneath his fingernails. On his tongue is an almost-familiar taste; bitter and coppery but without the tangy aftertaste he remembers, and he hopes to God he hasn’t relapsed.  
  
He swipes his hand across his face, rubbing his eyes and trying to make his mind _focus_ , but when he moves his hand down, he’s sitting at a table and Dean’s putting food in front of him, words slipping from his brother’s mouth faster than Sam can process, although he does catch a few words here and there— _angels, heaven, chaos_ , amongst others. Dean isn’t really waiting for a response, which is a welcome relief since Sam doesn’t really have any answers that don’t start with more questions. As he reaches for his fork, he pauses at the sight of his clean hands, suddenly realizing that he’s freshly washed and in a robe. He starts to doubt whether or not his time outside had been real… but he’s still missing a few chunks of time that he can’t place.  
  
The comforting chatter suddenly pauses and Dean places a hand on Sam’s shoulder, peering concernedly into his face.  
  
“You okay, Sammy?” his brother asks, glancing at the untouched food. “I thought…” His brow furrows and all those worry lines come out like starbursts around his eyes. “I thought you were feeling better? You’ve stopped trying to hack up a lung, and you full-on Annie Oakley’d that target in the shooting range yesterday.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam quickly agrees, relieved to finally be able to follow at least one small thread of the conversation. “Yeah, m’fine—well, _physically_ , at least. I think my mind’s still adjusting.”  
  
Dean nods slowly then presses what looks like a glass of orange juice into Sam’s hand. He hesitates for a moment, and Sam knows from experience that Dean’s debating whether or not to guide the glass to Sam’s lips and attempt to hand-feed him his breakfast. It hadn’t ended well the last time (they’re _still_ finding small shards of glass and ceramic on the floor), and Sam gives his brother a _look_ that warns Dean that the same thing will happen again this time if he tries, so Dean lets go of the cup and turns away with a sigh.  
  
Again, reality gets muffled, noises muted into static, and Sam feels sort of like he’s travelling underwater; the air around him beating a thick pressure on his brain that makes it difficult to finish a thought or remember what he was doing. After an indeterminate amount of time, Sam finds himself being ushered into the Impala. He’s not sure what’s going on—if he’s headed out to a hunt, a food run, or something else entirely—and he feels like he should probably say something to Dean, but the lull of the moving car makes it impossible to concentrate.  
  
This time when he opens his eyes, he’s in a diner, sitting across a table from Castiel.  
  
“Cas!” he shouts in surprise, earning a couple of startled glances from the other diner guests, but Cas just nods at him, looking tired and resigned.  
  
“I can’t help you,” the angel states in gruff apology, glancing between his coffee cup and Sam.  
  
Sam ignores Cas’s enigmatic statement, instead choking out, “You’re okay! Where have you been? We haven’t seen you since—”  
  
But Cas surges forward, clamping his hand over Sam’s mouth and leaning forward intently.  
  
“Don’t,” he warns, eyes narrowing. “You’re not from this time.”  
  
Sam looks at the angel in bewilderment, and when Cas’s pale hand slides away from his mouth, Sam swallows back the fragmented words behind his lips and shakes his head in confusion. But then Dean’s leaning over him, shaking him awake, and Sam looks around, discovers that he’s in the passenger seat of the car again, and takes in a deep, shuddering breath.  
  
“Where are we?” Sam asks, grabbing onto his brother’s arm and trying to steady himself in this time loop.  
  
“Garth’s houseboat,” Dean answers, placing a hand over the one Sam’s got clutching his sleeve. “Just picking up a few things for Kevin.”  
  
Nodding, Sam pushes himself up and out of the car, his feet solid and strong underneath him as he stands up, and he wonders for a brief moment how his body can feel so normal when his mind feels like wet, shredded tissue paper. Dean looks somewhat mollified that Sam can walk on his own, but he still hovers nearby, anxious and worried but restraining himself from coddling Sam like he obviously wants to.  
  
Some perverse part of Sam wonders how far Dean would take this overprotection—how many seconds it would take his brother to toss Sam into a fireman’s carry if he so much as stumbled—but Sam’s done being taken care of; he’s had enough of being sick and weak to last three lifetimes, and he decides not to test that curious thought today.  
  
Once inside, Dean makes a beeline to Kevin’s room, rooting through the few things left and gathering up what he needs, and Sam wanders around while he waits for his brother. He ends up standing in front of the large, glass windows, his eyes entranced by the water lapping against the boat and surging on and on in the distance. He doesn’t realize his mistake until his vision’s already faded to black and—  
  
So it goes.  
  
He’s in the diner again—or, well, the same franchise, but a glance out the window reveals a different background on the other side of the glass: bright, neon lights and buildings crammed together like passengers in a subway instead of the neat grid of parks and sidewalks from last time.  
  
Cas is there again, and, unsurprised, the angel reaches out to grab onto Sam’s wrist. The moment Cas touches him, Sam feels a tendril of power snake under his skin, tying him to Castiel in a way that promises to stop the erratic jumps in time, however briefly. Sam relaxes gratefully, hoping to just stay in one place for more than a few minutes at a time.  
  
“You Winchesters keep getting yourselves lost in time,” Cas remarks, blue eyes flashing in the bright restaurant lighting as he carefully studies Sam. “Something’s drawing you back to this moment. I’ve been contemplating whether it’s my own displacement in space that’s somehow attracting your unstable journey in time.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Sam replies, staring at the graceful fingers that circle halfway around his wrist. “Could be. Is there any way you can fix it?”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Cas’s mouth grimaces apologetically before he awkwardly turns his eyes down to the table. “From what I can tell, some part of your internal stability has been knocked off-track—a minor displacement, really, although I don’t know how to set it right. It may mend itself in time… or it may worsen.”  
  
Before Sam can give any kind of reply, the angel shoots a pointed look at the clock and announces, “I have to move. Would you like to come with me or stay here?”  
  
“I’ll go with you,” Sam quickly answers and, nodding, Castiel tightens his fingers around Sam’s wrist, and the next thing Sam knows, they’re halfway across the country in a Biggerson’s restaurant which, with the exception of the blood-orange desert hills framed in the windows, looks exactly like the one they’d just left.  
  
Castiel orders them some coffee, and when the waitress notices Cas’s hand wrapped around Sam’s wrist, she ducks her head down, trying to hide a small smile, although the angel doesn’t appear to notice the reaction and simply thanks her when she fills up his mug.  
  
“Is this where you went?” Sam asks, realization clicking in place. “When you disappeared on us after taking the angel tablet?”  
  
“Yes.” The angel drums his fingers against the edge of his mug absently, nervously, and Sam surmises that Castiel’s been running for a while now. “I’ve managed to evade both demons and angels by keeping my movements within these restaurants.”  
  
“But you can’t run forever,” Sam states with a worried look.  
  
“You think I don’t know that?” Castiel sharply retorts, but as Sam opens his mouth to apologize, Cas waves him off and sighs. “No, I’m sorry,” he says, shoulders slumping even lower. “I… I’m falling apart here, Sam. I used to be so _sure_ of my place in this universe. God designed angels to keep his creations in order, and we existed to do His work. But ever since I met you and your brother...” He stops and shakes his head like he’s re-thinking something. “No. Ever since I came to _Earth_ , I’ve realized that good and evil aren’t so easily defined.”  
  
The angel pauses to sip his drink, and Sam tentatively responds, “So… perhaps that means that angels are a lot more like humans than they’d like to think. Maybe you’re just as fallible as we are. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing—it means that you can choose who you want to be, just like the rest of us down here.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Cas mutters, his voice as black as the coffee he’s holding in his hand. He spares a glance up at Sam, and Sam can see his eyes softening in assessment. “You are a prime example of those blurred lines,” the angel states absently, the rim of his mug falling away from the edge of his lips. “I believed you akin to the anti-Christ when I first met you; considered you an abomination because of the demon-blood tainting your veins. And yet… while you’ve had your dark moments, I don’t believe you’ve ever tried to do anything but good for this world.”  
  
They sit quietly for a while, Cas sipping his coffee black, and Sam diluting the bitterness in his with cream and sugar. Sam’s eyes track the way Castiel draws the aromatic cup to his mouth, noticing the sheen the liquid brings to his lips and how his eyes half-close as he swallows down the dark warmth. The movements and reactions seem so humanly vulnerable, and as Sam replays Cas’s quiet admissions in his head, he realizes how tired Cas must be of belonging to neither Heaven nor Earth; never quite able to follow his superiors with the blind faith they demanded but never fully comfortable amongst humans either.  
  
Sam suspects that to be one of the reasons the angel had attempted to seek sanctuary in Purgatory; tried to label himself as a monster in order to find a place he could fully belong. Sam had never gotten the full story behind Castiel’s and Dean’s year in that place—neither willing to supply more detail than necessary—and instead had to quietly and methodically store away every crumb of information the two let slip in order to piece together a hazy idea of what had occurred. When he realized that Cas had actually _chosen_ to stay behind in that monster-infested dimension, it had bothered him more than he’d been able to let on.  
  
Dean, however, has already offered the angel another niche; called Castiel _family_ , and Sam hopes Cas understands that Dean wouldn’t have done so without knowing that Sam agreed. There’s no doubt that Castiel’s a Winchester—he belongs with Dean and Sam in a way that he doesn’t anywhere else.  
  
This Cas doesn’t know it, but he’ll soon be homeless; knocked out of the nest with the rest of his angelic brothers and sisters who had blazed down from the sky like falling stars only to land in the mud of humanity. But Sam knows better than anyone that home doesn’t always have a fixed address, and he wants to assure Cas that he’ll always have a place with Dean and him. But, remembering how quickly the angel had stopped him from speaking of the future, Sam hesitates, trying to figure out which words are safe for him to speak.  
  
“Cas?”  
  
Castiel’s eyes flick up to meet Sam’s; his expression patient despite the red fatigue snaking around the whites of his eyes.  
  
“You know you don’t have to do this alone,” Sam offers. “Dean and I can help. Or at least try. You don’t need to protect this tablet by yourself.”  
  
“I do.” Castiel’s low voice has slipped into its most gravely register, and his fingers twitch restlessly against Sam’s wrist as he sighs. “Sam, I haven’t exactly been an asset to you and your brother as of late. I nearly destroyed your sanity in my quest for a power I didn’t understand. I was all but useless to you both as a hunter. And I’ve disappointed and betrayed Dean more times than I can ever expect to be forgiven for. I’m not…”  
  
Castiel stops to clear his throat, but Sam understands even before the angel finishes. Sam knows what it’s like to live with Dean’s high expectations and fierce loyalty better than anyone—could write a damn manual on the many ways in which to disappoint Dean as well as a _how-to-cope_ guide.  
  
“That’s just Dean,” Sam explains, suddenly grateful to have someone who might understand what it’s like to be Dean’s brother; how that family-tight bond can make him feel both protected and suffocated at the same time. “Sometimes he gets a little too caught up in his black-and-white world, and he forgets that we’re people, not just soldiers in a war. But you know you—”  
  
This time he’s kicked back to the present with a jolt as the shotgun in his hands slams into his shoulder. To his side, he can hear Dean swearing a blue streak.  
  
“Dammit, Sam!” Dean calls out irritably. “You told me you could handle this! Now get your shit together before it comes back, and this time try to fucking _aim_. I can’t worry about your sorry ass while I’m looking for the damn hairbrush _and_ trying not to get thrown into a wall.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam answers dizzily, looking down at the gun in his hands and tightening his grip. “Sorry, Dean. I got this, really. What are we hunting, again?”  
  
Dean’s mouth tightens and he shakes his head, although Sam can see the flashes of concern in the corners of his brother’s eyes, and he knows Dean’s more worried than pissed.  
  
“Just a ghost, Sam,” Dean replies carefully. “And all I need you to do is watch my back so I can barbeque the last of the remains. Can you do that?”  
  
“Yes,” Sam says firmly, needing to convince both himself and Dean and trying to will his mind to let him stay in one place for just _ten minutes_. Dean doesn’t look entirely convinced, but Sam gives him a hard, pointed look until Dean makes an exasperated gesture and obviously decides that he’s too close to finishing the job to stop now, and that he’ll just have to trust Sam not to fuck things up in the meantime.  
  
Sam levels the shotgun against his shoulder, alert and ready for whenever the ghost decides to come back. When he sees movement in the corner of his eye, he whips his body towards it, shotgun barrel still up, but there’s nothing’s there—empty wall, empty air. But then the edges of his vision shift again, and he can feel his body stretching across time; sees café tables set against the walls of this crumbling old house and transparent patrons milling around the dirt-caked floor.  
  
The ghost catches him by surprise; plunges her hand into Sam’s chest and squeezes until he’s on the floor, gasping. He barely has the air to shout out for Dean before the solid oak bookcase slams on top of him, crashing down just as the ghost suddenly screeches and burns out of existence with a loud, hot crackle that means Dean must have found and scorched the hairbrush.  
  
Sam keeps expecting to blip out of time again, but although he can feel the tug, it doesn’t take him all the way—and it hurts; everything hurts, especially when he feels like he’s being split in two. His hands and arm are scraped and bruised from the fall, and Sam tries to push off the bookcase but the vertigo makes it difficult for him to figure out which way is up, and he claws at the wood until his fingers bleed. But then Dean finally finds him, shoves the heavy furniture off, and carefully checks Sam for injuries and damage.  
  
“You okay?” Dean grunts, his hands thorough as they search Sam from top to bottom, and for a few seconds, Sam swears his brother’s green eyes flicker blue; the irises wavering between two sea-glass colors before settling back into their original hue.  
  
“No,” Sam answers, and he knows it’s time to come clean, as hard as it is to even focus long enough to explain. The moment he opens his mouth, words come rushing out, hurrying to beat the clock before he’s sucked back into another worm hole. “Dean I—I’m losing track of where I am; _when_ I am. I feel like I’m sleepwalking, and I keep waking up in some other time. I’m trying to hold on, but I can feel it inside me, pulling me back again. Dean, just—I don’t want to go.”  
  
Sam reaches out until he finds his brother’s hand; grips it so tight it hurts, but it’s still somehow not enough, and Sam feel his insides being stretched like a rubber band, quivering and ready to snap, and he doesn’t know where he’ll land when it does. So, teeth gritted, he pleads, “Dean, you gotta make me stay.”  
  
“I don’t—” Dean breaks off and shakes his head, looking around desperately, but there’s nothing there, just scattered rock salt and husks of insects belly-up on the floor, and neither of them even have a clue what’s wrong with Sam. When Dean turns back to face his little brother, his jaw clenches as he steels himself and something determined flashes across his face. Sam’s heart stutters for a beat when Dean’s eyes lock onto his. He knows that look. His brother’s about to do something reckless. Or stupid. Or both.  
  
Swiftly—no time to change his mind or think this through—Dean leans down, pressing his lips against Sam’s, moving his mouth slow and careful, like he’s not sure if this will help or hurt his brother but needing to do _something_.  
  
The surprise is enough to slam Sam back in the present, and he clings onto that hold, kissing Dean back, maintaining that unhurried pace but deepening this just a little as he tries to sharpen all these sensations, make them real enough to keep him here, and finding himself suddenly and inexplicably fascinated by the hot curve of Dean’s lips against his.  
  
He’s aware that this should probably feel stranger than it does, but if he truly lets those barriers crumble, he knows that he and Dean have flirted with the edge of this madness for a while—hell, probably their whole lives. He’s always been aware of the razor thin justification for every touch that’s lingered too long, every look edged with more than just brotherly affection, every moment of their lives that they’ve spent wrapped up in each other. This is just the first time that something’s pushed them to the edge to test boundaries that don’t really exist.  
  
When Sam’s hands—all on their own—decide to reach up and slide through the short crop of his brother’s hair, Dean’s mouth opens in a brief, startled inhalation, and Sam seizes the opportunity to slip past his brother’s lips, tongue probing just deep enough to tentatively brush against his brother’s. When Dean just opens up and curls his tongue around Sam’s, Sam can feel the reflexive heat in his gut, making him want to flip them over, pin Dean down, and explore every secret part of his brother’s mouth. But he doesn’t, and, right in the middle of him gently sucking on Dean’s puffy and spit-wet lower lip, Dean goes still, as if the ramifications of what they’re doing have just hit him.  
  
“C’mon Dean, keep going,” Sam says in a heavy breath as he stares at Dean with needy, slanted eyes. “It’s working.”  
  
“Yeah, okay Sammy,” his brother responds, voice so low that Sam has to strain to catch the words. But it doesn’t matter because Dean’s back to kissing him, sliding his mouth across Sam’s cheek until he’s meeting his lips, and Sam smiles, opens his eyes and sees—  
  
Electric blue.  
  
He pulls his face away from the shocked angel, quickly taking in his surroundings and finding that he’s once again in the same damn restaurant, tucked away in the back hallway near the kitchen entrance and restrooms.  
  
“Cas?”  
  
The angel seems flustered, literally backed up against a wall, and by the way Cas looks—face flushed, lips bruised dark—Sam wonders if somehow he’s been kissing both Dean and Cas at the same time. Something hot and dark stirs in his gut that feels like truth but also (if Sam’s being honest with himself) a little bit like lust.  
  
Sam knows he should probably step back and give his friend some space, but he doesn’t want to, not just yet, not with these almost-memories flashing across his brain, shuffling from one slide to the next in a series of blurs too fast for him to catch any details.  
  
“How long have I been here?” Sam asks, planting one palm on the wall behind Cas as the dizziness catches up with him along with the residual flush of heat.  
  
“…Approximately fifteen minutes,” Cas answers slowly, his voice just a tad unsteady. He seems to understand Sam’s confusion and adds, “You were disoriented when you arrived, and there was blood on your hands, so I brought you back here to let you wash up, but you pushed me against the wall and…”  
  
Sam’s mouth twitches, his dimples cutting into his cheeks, and he wryly inserts, “…had my way with you?”  
  
The angel swallows nervously and nods. “Yes.”  
  
Sam can see the way Castiel’s perplexed eyes keep flitting to his lips, uncertain but also contemplative, and a distant memory teases at the edge of Sam’s mind, making him lean in, crowding even further into Cas’s space while the angel sucks in a quick breath and goes very, very still. Sam promises himself that he’s not going to take this very far—he doesn’t want to traumatize his friend—but he’s frustrated with the broken scattering of sensory imagines in his mind, and he’s determined to fill in the gaps.  
  
So he nudges into the side of Cas’s head, sliding his cheek against the softness of Cas’s perpetually-mussed hair as guilt and want and confusion all claw for dominance in his gut, but then he breathes in the angel’s scent—a light, clean smell, like sun-dried bed sheets—and _want_ wins the brief scuffle as he leans down to press his mouth against the indented juncture of Cas’s neck and shoulder.  
  
The natural curve of bone and muscle feels good under his lips and tongue, and Sam allows himself to wonder for a second if he’s betraying Dean, but then he shoves that doubt aside and protests that he’s _not_. He’s choosing them both; hell, probably chose them at the same time—both men his brothers, one by blood, one by providence—and he has a fierce need to protect what’s left of his home and family. If he and Dean have already crossed this line, he’s not going to leave Cas behind.  
  
When he pulls back, Castiel’s eyes are owl-wide, and Sam boldly places a calming kiss on his lips, relieved when he feels the slightest hint of a response from the angel—brief, hesitant, but there all the same.  
  
“C’mon.”  
  
Sam makes a small gesture for them to get out of the hallway and back to a table, but Cas shakes his head and circles his hand around Sam’s arm when he starts to walk away.  
  
“No.” Castiel takes a moment to visibly pull himself together; tugs down his overcoat and wipes his mouth before blinking like he’s trying to clear his head. “Wait, uh, just a moment. I’ve been waiting for your return, Sam. I have a potential solution to this time anomaly you’re experiencing. It’s not… ideal, but I don’t believe there will be any lasting effects.”  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Sam replies, turning back to face his friend. “What is it?”  
  
“These trials—they started with blood,” Cas states, voice growing more steady. “First by your bathing in the blood of a hellhound then by your travels to both Purgatory and Hell in the same day. The trials have changed something in your physiological structure, something related to Hell-blood and walking in lower dimensions.”  
  
“So what’s gonna get me back on track?” Sam questions, unsure where the angel’s heading with all this, and uneasy, as always, when the topic of blood comes to the table.  
  
“Blood.” Cas’s voice rumbles deep, and Sam tries not to flinch when Cas’s fingers tighten on his arm, pulling Sam closer so a waitress can squeeze past him on her way to the kitchen. “My blood. It’s not a counteragent—angel blood isn’t necessarily the opposite of demon blood. But it might be just enough to jumpstart your system; get your body to put itself right.”  
  
Sam feels his insides tighten as he warily asks, “How much blood will I need?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Castiel replies, eyes narrowing as he does some internal calculations. “There’s no telling how much will be necessary to trigger the change. But I can withstand significantly more blood loss than a human or even a demon, and I will let you know if you drink too much.”  
  
Sam rubs the edge of his thumb across an eyebrow, considering his possibilities and realizing that this is pretty much it. Dean wasn’t able to keep him in one place, and he’s not sure how much time he has left with Cas before he’s jumped to the left and sucked into another time warp, so he needs to decide now.  
  
“Okay.” Sam gives the angel a brief nod, pulls out the switchblade tucked into his shoe, and hands it to Cas. “If you really think this could stop my Billy Pilgrim time jumps, I’m game.”  
  
The angel takes the opened blade from Sam’s hand and very carefully runs it across his forearm. The ex-junkie part of Sam holds his breath, afraid and excited and resentful all at once, and Sam tries not to let his hand shake when Castiel hands him back the knife, tries not to give himself away as his eyes track the blood droplets running down the side of Cas’s arm.  
  
“Go ahead,” Cas says, holding out his arm to Sam and nodding his permission. “Drink.”  
  
Sam shoves back the last of his uncertainty as he pulls the arm to his mouth, seals his lips on the angel’s skin, and sucks.  
  
He bites back the reflexive moan as the liquid hits his tongue and runs down his throat, cleaner than demon blood and without the dizzying rush of power that he’d been used to. Instead of making him feel like he can conquer the world, Cas’s blood makes him feel alive; like he can feel the connection between every living thing and creature in the universe, and he wonders if this is how angels feel all the time—and, if so, how they can still be such a bag of dicks.  
  
After only a few swallows, Sam can feel his body solidifying, reconstructing itself, finding stability, and when Sam looks up, he has just enough time to see Cas’s shaky smile before—  
  
He’s back in the woods.  
  
He recognizes this scene; can smell the rising dawn and feel the dirt under his bare feet, and he knows that he’s been here before.  
  
To his right, he can just barely make out the door to the bunker through a few feet of trees, and, rubbing his hands against the goose bumps on his arms, he heads in that direction. He knows, with a certainty that he can’t explain, that this was it— his last trip in time— and he swallows back the taste of angel blood lingering on his tongue as he approaches the door.  
  
He’s still not sure what’s going on, but he and Dean (and hopefully Cas) survived the trials, and that feels like a win to him, as short-termed as it may be. The chaos is nothing new; in all honesty, it’s their lives, and Sam could use some consistency—even if the only consistency he knows in this world is chaos and blood and family. And, even if it’s a little battered and worse for wear, he finally feels like he’s back in the driver’s seat of his own body.  
  
Sam breathes out.


End file.
